Facts of Grief

Benefits of Support Group 

1) Those who were participants of support groups including online support groups reported feeling less psychological distress a year after a loss than those who were not members of a support group (Hartig & Viola, 2016).

2) Utilizing an online support group provides members access to support 24/7.  Additionally, support for stigmatizing loss can be accessed online without the shame that may be associated with certain losses. For example, losing a loved one to HIV/AIDS, death by suicide or a nonfamily member where people in our everyday circle may not recognize how great the loss is felt (Hartig & Viola, 2016).

3) Online support groups have shown to regulate stress, empowering individuals, and finding meaning in grief (Doveling, 2014).

4) Online support groups provide an outlet for participants to express a range of difficult emotions (Tichon, 2015). 

The video below describes the experience of grief and how we learn to live our lives around grief.  It beautifully states that our life moves around the grief and we do not move on from it.  This is consistent with the latest approach to loss and grief that is more fluid than originally presented with the stages of grief presented by Kubler Ross.

Process of Grief

Full article on online grief support

Doveling, K. (2014). Emotion Regulation in Bereavement: Searching for and finding emotional support in social network sites. New Review of Hypermedia and multimedia, 21, 106-122. 

Hartig, J. & Viola, J. (2016). Online grief support communities: Therapeutic benefits of membership. Journal of Death and Dying, 73 (10), 29-41. 

Tichon, J.G. (2015). Exploring how children express feelings and emotions in an online support group. Computers in human behavior, 53, 469- 474.